NiX: adult themes in the snow

I suspect that all reviews for anything created by Kendra Fanconi begin in a similar fashion: by acknowledging her vision and achievements.

Fanconi thinks big and those ideas are often tied to specific locations, whether it’s “the show in the swimming pool” (The One That Got Away) or “the show that uses all of False Creek” (Other Freds) or this one, NiX (produced by The Only Animal), “the show set in snow”. Interestingly enough, my favourite work by Fanconi is the small and beautifully formed piece she created for HIVE2. There are, I think, a couple of other links to her work – including to the HIVE piece – which I personally respond to. First, she reinvents tropes taken from fairytales and folk stories and secondly she’s not burdened by the tiresome need to be ironic. She is open to exploring emotional honesty in her work which in this city is a breath of fresh air.

It is impossible to talk about NiX without mentioning all the elements involved in the experience of seeing the show. If you’re coming up from Vancouver and taking the provided bus shuttle, you’ll find yourself on an old school bus trundling up the Squamish Highway past the spectacular Howe Sound. After a dinner break, you’re taken to the venue which has been constructed near Lost Lake. On the night I attended, a significant number of patrons arrived by cross-country skis, which made me feel rather envious although I’ve never been on skis in my life (hence my spectacular inappropriateness for the land of my birth).

The box office is located in a tent called the “Ice Bar” and like the concession stand is sculpted out of jagged shapes of snow. The floor is packed snow giving your clumsy reviewer a slight sense of vertigo and memories of challenging skating lessons. The cast bios are set into a fabulous snow wall and there is a podium which includes a dreamy ice sculpture. It’s from the podium that the show begins, with Ryan Wilkie (The Arsonist) delivering a monologue.  Like the rest of the cast, Wilkie is dressed in grey, Edwardianish clothing and his face has an equally grey, death-like pallor highlighted by a bladerunner slash across the eyes. After the monologue, Wilke sings to the crowd, accompanied by two musicians on tuba and trumpet that breathe fire into the cold air. It is a magical effect.

The Arsonist runs off into the darkness and we troop down to the performance space.  The first thing you need to know about the performance itself is that it does not take place outdoors. I’m sure there are many practical reasons for this but for some reason in my mind I had visualized the show taking place outside with flames licking the black sky. Instead, the audience found itself inside a geodesic dome. The floor and the set are – however – all made of snow. The floor is slightly raked and is a bit slippery so definitely wear shoes that have traction (and are warm – no, seriously, keep your feet warm). With its round, organic curves, the stage evokes an igloo with tiny platforms for the performers on each side and around back. A slide curves around the main playing space and the actors frequently enter via the slide, which was received with delight by the audience.  Panels of snow come off the set – actually, in most cases are smashed off – for reveals throughout the evening.  The set (designed and carved by Carl Schlichting) felt slightly claustrophobic to me and the actors didn’t seem to have enough space to play in. I also wondered whether it necessitated the frequent exits and entrances which gave the show it’s perhaps unintended farce-like structure. Interestingly, the Ice Bar was a more fun space to experience.

We are introduced to a woman, Natascha Girgis, who is ten and a half months pregnant. Like the land around her, she and her foetus have come to a frozen stop. We are then introduced to a girl (Jennie Esdale) who, in fairly short order, makes a deal with the Arsonist to kill the pregnant woman. I was never clear as to why the Girl makes this deal. The story seems to be operating at the level of parable but I have to confess that I didn’t really understand what was going on or how the characters related to one another. There is a Beckett-like absurdity to the situation – which is perfectly fine – but the actual narrative and emotional strands that bind the characters remained a mystery to me. Someone suggested to me afterwards that perhaps the pregnant woman stood for the natural world and the Arsonist was some sort of redemptive force. I’m happy to accept this – and love the idea of a villain acting as redeemer – but it seems that Fanconi was striving for something more and that thing is not articulated clearly enough.

I think part of the problem is that the show simply fizzes with too many ideas – most of them compelling: an arsonist with nothing to burn, a pregnant woman who is frozen to a stop, the girl who seems to exist in some sort of fantasy state that becomes realized. These ideas are then further bundled with a dark meditation on pregnancy and birth; which is an interesting contrast in a location so bereft of life. Any of these would have been enough to sustain a sixty minute show. On the bus trip back into town, I found myself wondering if the show needed to somehow be more anchored to its location, to somehow fuse the snow more into thematic stuff of the work rather than act as a setting.

The performances are a bit mixed. I thought Girgis and Wilkie were strong but Esdale’s performance is so broad its like she’s on children’s television (perhaps in a skit with the moral that it’s bad idea to kill your mother). However, I think the kids in the audience really responded to Esdale and her willingness to smash things. It was hearing the frequent laughter of the children that made me realize the challenge that Fanconi had set herself. She was creating family entertainment that dealt with very dark, very adult themes. This is a near-impossible task to pull off and I left the theatre thinking that, if recalibrated accordingly, this would make one-kick ass theatre for young audiences.

Fanconi can write. The show crackles with witty and thoughtful lines (including “as soon as we’re born we’re old enough to die”). I guess I wanted her to focus that wit more on one idea, not unlike following a single snowflake’s descent to the earth.

NiX continues until February 27th at Lost Lake, Whistler. You can find out more information at the Only Animal website, including details on how to get up there.